Some Ethiopians endure dust storms
and midday sun while walking to health clinics for treatment
of diseases devastating Ethiopia that are preventable but fatal,
such as malaria, typhoid, AIDS, and malnutrition. The Earth
Institute has created the Center for National Health Development
in Ethiopia to provide support for a program that will put
health care within reach of 12 million Ethiopians.

Michael Crichton’s
new novel “State of Fear” is about a self-important NGO hyping the
science of the global warming to further the ends of evil eco-terrorists.
The inevitable conclusion of the book is that global warming
is a non-problem. A lesson for our times maybe? Schmidt thinks
not. more

Presentations on global poverty mapping,
climate change, seismic activity in Italy, and arsenic are
just a few of the topics being presented by Earth Institute
scientists at the annual American Geophysical Union.

The timing of an international conference
on waste management was held just as the Bloomberg
administration announced its 20-year plan to deal with New
York City's residential waste by shipping the bulk of it elsewhere
by barge and promoting more recycling.
Both the announcement and the conference raised a host of environmental,
intra-government and other concerns.

Three members of Columbia’s Department
of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics have used a simple
climate model to demonstrate how the weather systems and storms
we experience may be influenced by disturbances in the Earth’s
stratosphere, the upper layer of atmosphere between 10 and
30 miles high.

"A
lot has happened since the last report three weeks ago.
We visited the New Zealand port of Timaru to refuel the
ship and then headed back south towards Antarctica. During
our third crossing the usual strong winds and high seas
caused the by now well-known seasickness."

Lenora Suki, Associate
Director at the Earth Institute at Columbia University’s
Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development, has completed
an evaluation of financial institutions that channel remittances
between immigrants in the United States to their friends and family
in the Dominican Republic.

11/18/04

Ford Award Honors Carbon Cycle Pioneer

Taro Takahashi, a geochemist at the
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, was presented the Ford Award
in recognition of his contribution to understanding
what happens to industrial CO2. download pdf

Researchers suggest
that reductions of trace gases may allow stabilization of climate
so that additional global warming would be less than 1° C,
a level needed to maintain global coastlines. Although carbon dioxide
emissions, an inherent product of fossil fuel use, must also be
slowed, the required carbon dioxide reduction is much more feasible
if trace gases decrease.

If China's increasing demand for oil to fuel its industrialization is the reason we are getting beaten up at the gas pumps now, get ready for a pummeling in the next few decades. The time for an action plan is now, and long overdue.

In the middle of
the Atlantic Ocean, there is a ridge that sticks up from the bottom
1000-2000m. This is the mid-Atlantic Ridge, where two continental
plates are moving apart at about 2-3 inches per year, which is
about as fast as your fingernails grow.

The first population genetic study of free-ranging
Asian elephant populations has unexpectedly revealed that elephants
in Southern India evolved into two genetically distinct groups thousands
of years ago.

"I have been told by a high government
official that I should not talk about 'dangerous anthropogenic
interference' with
climate, because we do not know how much humans are changing the
Earth’s climate or how much change is 'dangerous.'
Actually, we know quite a lot."

The Earth Institute's Earth Clinic provides
prescriptions to developing countries to relieve immediate economic
and environmental problems and put them on a path of sustainable
development. The Earth Clinic will address the many requests from
presidents, prime ministers, and ministers of finance, environment,
health, agriculture, among others, for science-based assistance to
extremely urgent issues of economic development, public health, energy
systems, water management, agriculture and infrastructure.

A unique collaborative project assessing
natural disasters and the risks to human populations and economic activity
will provide a quantitative basis for risk-conscious investments in
sustainable development worldwide.The final report, “Global
Natural Disaster Risk Hotspots,” will be published by The
World Bank this winter.

Gerd Krahmann, research scientist at
the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,writes from the seas
aroundAntarctica: "With
everything safely tied to tables, walls and floors the huge
waves were not able to cause any problems for our equipment.
Unfortunately, this could not be said for the stomachs of some
of us."

Severe drought in western states in recent
years may be linked to climate warming trends, according to new
research, led by scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, to be published
in the journal Science.

Not enough is know about what triggers major droughts, yet they occur all across North America often having greater economic and social impacts than any other type of natural disaster. Researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have used 835 annual tree-ring chronologies based on measurements from 20- to 30-thousand tree samples across the United States, Mexico, and parts of Canada to reconstruct a history of drought over the last 2005 years.

For the first time in the history of the
University, undergrads are being taught a core curriculum science
class. For part of the class, 550 undergrads will fan out into
Manhattan green areas to collect data about urban biodiversity that
has never been collected before.

Many of the most important policy challenges
facing the planet require a central focus on sustainability and
development. Columbia University’s new Ph.D. in Sustainable
Development program began this fall with six students from five
continents and backgrounds in economics, environmental studies,
chemistry and international development.

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has purchased
a new research vessel to replace
the Lamont-operated R/V Maurice Ewing, which has accumulated well
over half a million miles of track in its service to science and
exploration of ocean and deep Earth processes. Following a year-long
outfitting with modern laboratories and scientific equipment, she
will become the most capable academic research vessel utilizing
acoustic and seismic technologies in the world.

The birth of a hurricane requires the right
combination of ocean water temperature and wind patterns.
Suzana Camargo, a research scientist at the International Research
Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) uses this atmospheric data
to create experimental hurricane forecasts that can be used to identify
year-to-year variations, and ultimately develop tools to predict
seasonal hurricane landfall probabilities.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has
awarded the Earth Institute at Columbia University a five-year
$4.2 M ADVANCE Program grant to test methods to help women overcome
barriers to advancing their careers in Earth sciences and engineering
and making it into the ranks of tenured professors and senior research
scientists.

Brookings report discusses cause of African poverty and calculates costs to address it

The United States and other rich countries have
not delivered the promised foreign aid necessary to help many African
countries escape grinding poverty, according to the Brookings Papers
on Economic Activity (August 2004.) The authors calculate the necessary
amount to be less than 0.7 percent of the rich world's GNP.

As a geologist, Peter Kelemen, who was
recently appointed the Arthur Storke Memorial Professor of Geochemistry
at Columbia University, has ascended
to 7,500 meters on a Himalayan peak and plummeted into the Atlantic
to 5,500 meters. He has worked as a consultant on
mineral exploration projects where the terrain was too steep for
average geologists. He has traveled via snowmobile, helicopter
and climbing rope, all in the pursuit of secrets of the Earth's
crust.

Diriba Korecha Dadi, team leader of the
weather forecast and early warning unit at the National Meteorological
Services Agency in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, arrived at Columbia
this week to take part in the first class of Columbia University's
new M.A. Program in Climate and Society on a Joint
Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship.

Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia to boost government capacity

In the summer of 2004 Professor Awash Teklehaimanot,
a health expert with the Earth Institute at Columbia University
and member of the Center for Global Health and Economic Development,
launched the Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia,
a project of the Earth Institute in support of accelerated expansion
of primary health care facilities in Ethiopia.

With its parliament set to vote in the next few
weeks on tough new anti-corruption laws, São Tomé and Príncipe
could avoid the “resource curse” that plagues many low-income
oil exporters, whose newfound wealth often triggers corruption and social
conflict. more

Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society
(WCS), the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC) at The
Earth Institute at Columbia University, and other groups have discovered
that coral reefs nearly wiped out by climate change are recovering with unusual
heat-resistant algae that may help protect them from future warming. more

While researchers at Columbia's New York
Climate and Health Project (NYCHP) were investigating the health impacts
of climate change in the New York metropolitan region, they were simultaneously
collaborating on a national report using their innovative modelling and prediction
techniques. The national report, released today by the Natural Resources
Defense Council, is called Heat Advisory: How Global Warming Causes More
Bad Air Days.

As part of its mission to fund scientific research
that will provide a global census of various forms and quantities of carbon and
the natural and manmade factors that regulate carbon, NASA recently announced
a $671,000 grant to Ajit Subramaniam, a Doherty Associate Research Scientist
with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Earth Institute at Columbia
University.

Forty-five companies known for sending work outside
of their own employee base for completion, surveyed by the Earth Institute at
Columbia University, show that 82 percent are currently outsourcing jobs, 79
percent to offshore businesses. The majority not only report finding competitive
prices but better work skills than at home. Seventy percent of those who outsourced
reported that the quality of outsourced business processes had increased between
5 to 25 percent.

While the volume of water
flowing through the mid-ocean ridge is believed
to be the same magnitude as the water entering the oceans
from all the world's rivers, virtually nothing is
known about the chemicals and bacteria it contains,
or how this system works. Many scientists believe that
Earth’s
first organisms may have originated at locations
like the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The scientific drillship
JOIDES Resolution left Astoria, Oregon on June 27, 2004
for a two-month drilling expedition on the east ridge
of the Juan de Fuca Ridge (known as IODP Expedition
301) to capture sample fluids that may contain new microbes
and sediment that will help scientists better understand
this system.

Freeway-hopping bobcats and urban forest restoration
will be among the many topics discussed at the 2004 annual meeting of
the Society of Conservation Biology held in New York City from July 30
to August 2nd. The meeting, hosted by the Center for Environmental Research
and Conservation at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, will bring
together more than 1,700 scientists, conservation biology practitioners,
and students from around the world to focus on this year’s theme “Conservation
in the Urbanizing World.”

Deep in the Antarctic interior, buried under thousands
of meters (more than two miles) of ice, lies Lake Vostok, the world's largest
subglacial lake. Scientists believe that the waters of Lake Vostok have not been
disturbed for hundreds of thousands of years, and there are tantalizing clues
that microbes, isolated for at least as long, may exist. more

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
called for the launch of a "twenty-first century African Green Revolution" to
end chronic hunger on the continent. Speaking at a special meeting of African
heads of state and leading policymakers organized by the Ethiopian Government
and the Hunger Task Force of the UN Millennium Project, Annan noted that, "Africa
is the only continent where child malnutrition is getting worse rather
than better." more

Two hundred million of the world's
hungry live in Africa. Recognizing that a "business as usual"
approach will not significantly reduce hunger, on July 5, 2005,
an extraordinary gathering of African Heads of State, government
ministers, world leaders and hunger experts will focus on practical,
innovative solutions to halve the number of hungry and malnourished
people in Africa by 2015.

What causes the peaks and valleys of the world’s great mountains? For continental
ranges like the Appalachians or the Northwest’s Cascades, the geological
picture is clearer. Continents crash or volcanoes erupt, then glaciers erode
away. Yet scientists are still puzzling out what makes the highs high and the
lows low for the planet’s largest mountain chain, the 55,000-mile-long
Mid-Ocean Ridge.

The University of Guelph, a renowned research institution in Canada, has
awarded Pedro Sanchez, Director of Tropical Agriculture at the Earth Institute,
an honorary Doctor of Science for his breakthrough research in tropical soil.

New York will be hotter in the future, and some New Yorkers could be sicker
as a result, according to a study to be released at an event on June 25th hosted
by The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Columbia’s Mailman
School of Public Health. The study, involving three years of research by Columbia’s
New York Climate and Health Project (NYCHP), investigated the health impacts
of climate change scenarios in the region. On Friday June 25, the authors will
launch the study with a summary and workshop on its major findings.

For years, researchers have examined climate records indicating that millennial-scale
climate cycles have linked the high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere and
the subtropics of the North Pacific Ocean. What forces this linkage, however,
has been a topic of considerable debate.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the Tree-Ring Laboratory
of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, a $5.5 million grant
to study one of the largest climate systems affecting the globe-the
Asian monsoon climate system. This five-year study will apply the science of
tree-ring analysis (dendrochronology) and its application to the study of past
climate to key questions regarding the processes that drive the development
of the monsoon and its various characteristics through different regions.

In a letter to the Columbia University community this week, President Lee
C. Bollinger announced a gift of $15 million from University Trustee Gerry
Lenfest (Law'58) to the Earth Institute at Columbia. Provided through the Lenfest
Foundation, the gift will endow the first Earth Institute professorship, promote
sustainable development, and advance solutions to two of the most pressing
problems of our time: global climate change and acute global poverty.

From 1960 to 1990, scientists have observed a 1.3% per decade decline in
the amount of sun reaching the Earth’s surface. This phenomenon, coined “solar
dimming,” is due to changes in clouds and air pollution that are impeding
the sun's ability to penetrate. Scientists believe that the combination of
growing quantities of man-made aerosol particles in the atmosphere and more
moisture have caused the cloud cover to thicken.

After careful examination of data, an international team of scientists confirmed
yesterday the existence of a major undersea volcano on the seafloor of the
Antarctic Sound, near the northern-most tip of Antarctica. Scientists announced
their discovery yesterday from the Research Vessel L. M. Gould which has been
struggling through ice-covered seas in the Antarctic. The team is led by Hamilton
College's Eugene Domack and includes Gerd Krahmann from the Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory. (Krahmann is part of the CORC/ARCHES expedition and has
written about this trip in his Reports From the Field.)

This fact sheet is intended to provide a concise summary of the state of
knowledge about the Ramapo Fault System and earthquakes in the greater New
York City metropolitan area. The Ramapo Fault System is part of the largest
seismically active province in this region.

A new report to be released at Columbia University's Earth Institute on April
26, 2004 suggests that heart disease and stroke are far more urgent threats
to global health than commonly appreciated. download pdf of report

Dr. Gerd Krahmann of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is aboard the Research
Vessel Laurence M. Gould heading to Antarctic's Weddell Sea. Krahmann is leading
a group of five scientists and technicians from Lamont on an expedition to
replace moored instruments deployed in the Weddell Sea.

It took all of history until the year 1804 for human population to reach
its first billion. Now a billion new people are added every dozen years. NOVA
explores these and other trends in the relationship between people and the
planet in World in the Balance, with interviews with Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth
Institute, and Joel Cohen, director of the Laboratory of Populations at the
Earth Institute and Rockefeller University. This two-hour Earth Day special,
airing Tuesday, April 20, 2004, from 8 to 10pm ET on PBS (check local listings).

For scientists studying climate change, the past is often a key to understanding
the future. Dake Chen at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
recently used more than a century of climate data to successfully test an improved
model of ENSO, the El-Niño/Southern Oscillation that scientists believe
is behind climate change in many parts of the world. more

Over 1,000 students, scientists, policymakers and experts attended the State
of the Planet 2004 conference, held at Columbia University. More than 50 leading
scientists and policymakers, like Mary Robinson (pictured at right), worked
to prioritize the best scientific practices and most urgent needs for investment
in the areas of energy, food, water, and health.
• watch video of event
• read consensus statement
• read highlights from Day 1 speakers

Ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, Columbia University is working closely
with the Government of Rwanda and its partners to expand what is rapidly becoming
one of the most successful HIV/AIDS initiatives on the continent. The Earth
Institute at Columbia and the Mailman School of Public Health are supporting
this initiative jointly.

Earlier this month a remarkable thing happened: all the 33 pupils from a
primary school in Kenya who sat for the national exams passed. More remarkable
still, half of the winners are AIDS orphans. The headmistress attributed this
amazing success in part to the school lunch program she initiated through voluntary
contributions of farmers in the community.

Finding the epicenter of earthquakes has not changed since the 1930s, and
this method can result in errors of several miles. But seismologists David
P. Schaff and Paul G. Richards, from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, part of the Earth Institute, have developed a method that increases
scientists' ability to pinpoint an earthquake's epicenter, resulting in new
findings in earthquake patterns in China.

To foster discussion on changes in the polar regions, and in preperation
for the planning of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-08, Jeffrey Sachs,
director of the Earth Institute held a meeting of polar experts that was presided
over by Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland, on Arctic
and Antarctic issues that have both local and global impacts.
Researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,
part of the Earth Institute, are participating in an ambitious effort to organize
the International Polar Year scheduled in 2007-2008. Dr. Robin Bell, a Doherty
Senior Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and a vice
chair of the International Council of Scientific Unions, the organization that
is spearheading international support and participating in this program, is
quoted in an article by the journal Science. read articledownload pdf of article

Directed by Columbia economists Nirupam Bajpai and Jeffrey Sachs, the Gujarat
project is just one example of how harnessing science to fight global poverty
lies at the core of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

A one-day workshop hosted by Earth Institute and Columbia scientists explored
research areas NASA has developed to sustain human life during long space missions-research
that could prove life-saving to populations with no access to potable water,
proper drainage or sewage systems.

The Hudson River Estuary, a stretch of the Hudson River from Troy, N.Y. to
its mouth in New York Harbor, has begun a new stage of its life say geologists
at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Queens College
in Flushing, N.Y. Researchers at both institutions have found that, aside from
a few very specific locations, the estuary may have largely stopped filling
in with new sediment.

While modern society likes to think of itself as scientifically and technologically
advanced, there are many questions critical to our survival that still can't
be answered. The traditional academic fields helped develop the world we live
in, and along with the wonders of the modern age, created the problems of environmental
degradation. Unless we learn a lot more in a hurry, the way we live today will
not be sustained in the future. That is the philosophy behind a new post-doctoral
program at Columbia University called the Earth Institute Fellows that is trying
to mobilize the sciences and policy to achieve a sustainable future, especially
for the poor.

Last month the Earth Institute convened about a dozen senior scientists to
explore projects central to the Institute's mission to achieve sustainable
development, especially for the poor. Former Mayor David Dinkins chaired the
discussion which focused on the idea of an Earth Institute New York City Sustainable
Development Initiative. The session was hosted by Steve Cohen, director of
the Earth Institute's educational programs, along with Jeff Sachs.

Working to link global decision-making to the best of sustainability science,
the Earth Institute at Columbia University will convene the third biennial
State of the Planet conference on March 29 - 30, 2004. The conference will
bring together an international roster of influential and innovative thinkers
on issues critical to the well-being of the Earth and its inhabitants-specifically
energy, food, water, and health.

Landfills continue to be the final resting
spot for most of America's waste, according to the results of the
national "State of Garbage in America" survey
conducted by BioCycle magazine and the Earth Engineering Center of
Columbia University, a unit of the Earth Institute.

Results from one of the most comprehensive studies of erosion of the earth's
surface have revealed the detailed spatial pattern of erosion in the Taiwan
mountain belt. The findings, recently reported in NATURE, provide evidence
that mountain erosion can be directly related to large earthquakes and storms.
Taiwan is one of the most rapidly eroding mountain belts on earth, with average
erosion rates of 3-6 mm per year and extreme rates of 60 mm per year in some
areas of weak rock that have recently experienced large earthquakes and storms.

Columbia University researchers have found that steel dust generated in the
New York City subway significantly increases the total amount of airborne iron
(Fe), manganese (Mn) and chromium (Cr) that riders breathe. The airborne levels
of these metals associated with fine particulate matter in the subway environment
were observed to be more than 100 times greater than levels observed in home
indoor or outdoor settings in New York City. Their research findings are scheduled
to appear in the January 15th issue of Environmental Science & Technology,
a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest
scientific society.